MONTEGO BAY, St James — Scores of residents participated in a raft of Labour Day activities across western Jamaica despite heavy rains.

Several pedestrian crossings, road signs, community notice boards, schools, churches, and bus stops were repainted by residents and employees from a number of private entities.

Persons also worked on completing bus stops, fencing around several schools and playing fields, construction of retaining walls and drains, as well as the general cleaning-up of their communities.

In St James, the parish council, spearheaded the cleaning-up of Charles Gordon Market in Montego Bay, and created a new entrance to the facility, providing more visibility to vendors, and improving security.

Other improvements works at the facility included the repainting of walls and the patching of sections of the car park.

Columbus Communications, operators of Flow and Columbus Business Solutions brands, contributed $150,000 to the initiative, which was declared the parish project.

At the Chetwood Memorial Primary School, also in Montego Bay, Sandals Montego Bay region gave the school’s library a facelift, repainted sections of the institution and planted trees.

The Cambridge Post Office, as well as the Salt Spring Primary School in St James, also received a Labour Day facelift.

Meanwhile, Mayor of Lucea, Shernet Haughton, told the Jamaica Observer that work on the Orange Bay Basic School in Hanover, which was the parish Labour Day project, will have to be continued “another day,” due to the inclement weather.

“The setback has to do with the heavy rains which fell earlier this afternoon (Thursday) in that section of the parish,” she said.

But she added that, despite the rain, perimeter fencing was erected at the school, and the premises bushed.

And in Lucea, a major project, which involved the construction of drains, paving of the road and the erection of directional signs, was carried out in the Bigwell Lane of the town.

Mayor of Savanna-la-Mar Bertel Moore said he was encouraged by the number of persons who participated in activities across the parish of Westmoreland.

“A lot of people came out and participated in the various projects. It was a success, and I am very pleased. The rain did not prevent us from working,” he stressed.

He was particularly happy with the work that was undertaken at the Roaring River Early Childhood Institution in the parish.

Over in Trelawny, the Stettin Type Three Health Centre received a much needed facelift.

The project was spearheaded by South Trelawny Member of Parliament Marissa Dalrymple-Philibert.

Scores of community members and employees of the health centre participated in the project, which included a major rehabilitation of the road leading to the two-decade-old facility.

The centre was also repainted.

“The centre was opened in 1993 and had not been painted since. It has suffered from the ravages of several hurricanes and tropical storms, so we decided to work on it. The road from the main road to the centre was also in a deplorable state, so we decided to do two things, we decided to rehabilitate the road from the main road up into the centre and also to paint the centre; inside and out,” Dalrymple-Philibert explained. Meanwhile, Mayor of Falmouth Councillor Garth Wilkinson described Labour Day activities in the parish as very productive.

For the most part, the mayor was among the group of volunteers who joined hands to beautify sections of the historic town of Falmouth.

A major beautification exercise was also undertaken by the Friends of the Falmouth Hospital at that facility.